Steven Bell and I were privileged to participate this week in the NISO virtual conference on Library Value & Assessment. The conference slides are available at: http://www.niso.org/news/events/2016/virtual_conference/apr20_virtualconf/
Presenting virtually, for me at least, was a bit nervous-making. Although we presented slides with audio, and I didn’t have to worry about my hair, it’s disconcerting to “present” to an invisible audience. Are they sitting with rapt attention or yawning? Fortunately our presentation, Why Library Assessment? A Look at Current Practice, went smoothly and then we could relax and enjoy hearing of great work from our assessment colleagues. Here is a brief re-cap:
Jocylyn Wilk, University Archivist at Columbia University, discussed the assessment tools in use at Columbia’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library in her talk, Why Is This Assessment Different from all the Others? The Archival Metrics Toolkits provide a rich set of survey and focus group instruments for use in assessing the user research experience, special collections websites and online finding aids, and instruction with special collections. Advantages for using these tools are: they are pre-validated and findings can more easily be shared with other institutions.
Elizabeth Brown (Director of Assessment and Scholarly Communications, Binghamton University) spoke about: Leveraging and Interpreting Library Assessment: Pulling the Wheat from the Chaff. Brown provided us with some good rules for telling a story with data:
- Remember your audience
- Match content to knowledge level
- Make message succinct
- Link analysis to existing data
- Show trends clearly – use simple graphs and charts
- Make quotes for qualitative data –
Ken Varnum (University of Michigan Library) spoke about Information Resources: Justifying the Expense; the kinds of data that libraries can use to demonstrate value. He raised some provocative questions related to our understanding of use data. For instance, does access (i.e. the download of an article as reflected in a COUNTER report) equal use? Is some use more valuable than other use, i.e. the use of collections by faculty rather than adjuncts? What about the kind of collection use that leads to new research? Or helps the faculty member get a grant?
Varnum noted that there is a big black hole, from the analytics perspective, in the use of the free web. Not only are we unable to track this usage, but we don’t know the scope of usage relative to what we license and pay for. To what extent do proxy users represent all users? While these are difficult, at times uncomfortable questions, they may be important ones to address as collection funds become limited.
In We’re Not Alone, Jan Fransen at the University of Minnesota reported on that institution’s exciting work to understand the relationships between use of the library and student success. Their research reflects years of relationship building and data collection with libraries data, the Office of Institutional Research and Academic Advising for student demographics as well as data related to student success. The library can confidently demonstrate, for instance, that use of the library at least one time increases the odds of a student staying in school. More on their research is located at: z.umn.edu/LDSS
Kristi Holmes (Northwestern Medicine) updated us on the Library-based Metrics & Impact Core. Northwestern’s Impact Core is a new kind of service that is a perfect fit for the library, and also supports the university’s reputation building capacity. With expertise in bibliometrics, data visualization, continuous improvement, information systems and alternative metrics, staff in the Impact Core provide extensive advisory services for researchers, as well as departments and university administration. With classes on bibliometrics for researchers and increasing impact of research, the library has also become the “go to” place for publication data used not only for promotion and tenure but in award nominations and VISA applications. Exciting and fitting role for the library.
In Planning the Plan: Collaborately Aligning Strategic Plan Initiatives and Assessment, Starr Hoffman (UNLV Libraries) provided us with a detailed look at the process she used with senior staff to ensure that the libraries’ assessment plan was in line with the strategic goals of the library. And as importantly, staff take ownership of those assessment activities.
In Why Measure That When We Need to Show This, Carl Grant (University of Oklahoma) provided the day’s wrap up. He spoke of the disconnect between the kinds of statistics we collect and libraries’ new roles. We need to be using metrics that align with what the university values. Oklahoma has created a Data Governance Committee that supports the work of bridging these data silos, including Institutional Reporting, IT, Libraries, Finance, Administration. Grant asks, “How do we create this culture of assessment?” and asserts that we need to “get in front of assessment. Part of change management is telling staff where they’re going to end up, how you will train them, and how you will make them successful.”
This recap does not do justice to the rich assessment work presented. I encourage you to explore the slides, freely available at: http://www.niso.org/news/events/2016/virtual_conference/apr20_virtualconf/